Ukraine v Russia II

Iran supplying drones to Russia should be interesting. Things going poorly with Iran nuke talks, as well.

https://thehill.com/homenews/admini...paring-to-send-russia-drones-for-ukraine-war/

 

There are/were approximately 300-400 laying around that the Marines just gave up.

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/ne...-and-what-it-will-lose-by-ditching-its-armor/

Throw in a few that were parts tanks, and/or training vehicles, and there are easily 500 American tanks for marek to use in his country, if only he were man enough to do so.

Carry on, then.

 

He’s American.

 

According to some Russian sources, the reason the MLRS rockets aren't being intercepted is that they precede an attack with multiple cheaper but inaccurate Russian-style unguided rockets. The Russian SAM launchers use up their immediate supply attempting to shoot those down, and before they can reload the MLRS rockets come in.

Some people are poking fun at the S-400 for not being able to shoot those down, but the S-400 systems are all far away and because of the distances and angles it isn't really possible for them to used in this way. But shorter range SAMs, particularly the Pantsir-S1, are supposedly designed for this (the Pantsir-S1 was made, among other things, to defend S-400 systems against exactly this type of attack). So it certainly says something about the systems, or at least the people running it, that it can't stop the rockets.

 

Yup. And this is precisely what makes all of the reframing of the SC abortion decision in the guise of Muslim fundamentalism so stupid. (how many leftists shared the mock-up picture where the SC justices are made to look like the Taliban)
That reframing seems to argue that Christians should not be doing this, when, look at literally thousands of years of history?

 

If you are a Russian general does that appropriated money work better on facilitating training on operating missle systems or sitting in some Panamanian investments?

 

The only thing that can stop a jerk is another jerk with a gun.

 

When asked to explain the meaning of Judaism, Rabbi Akiva (1st Century CE) replied, "Don't be a fúcking jerk. All the rest is commentary."

(My Hebrew translation may not be 100% accurate.)

 

An expert of the law asked Jesus how one could have eternal life. Jesus answered, “What does the Law say?”
The man said, “Love the Lord your God, with all of your heart and your neighbor as yourself.” Lk. 10:24
Then Jesus said, “Go and do it.” Lk. 10:26

 

I won't link any tweets, but it appears that Russia is starting to send a large number of troops to the Kherson region. I don't know if this means they are planning a major offensive in the area, or if these troops are just reinforcements for what remains of the separatist and VDV units in the area. Regardless of how you look at it, every unit that Russia sends to Kherson means a unit that they can't have on any other front, which seriously impacts their ability to carry out offensives.

However, it may not be as easy to get the troops and hardware to Kherson. Ukrainian partisans have reportedly blown up several railroad bridges between Melitopol and Kherson. This would force the troops onto the roads where they are very susceptible to IEDs and other partisan attacks.. Speaking of partisan attacks.. As the troops are heading through Melitopol, there is reportedly been a rather large increase in explosions and gunfire. That doesn't necessarily mean that partisans are hitting the caravans tho.. Russians are very twitchy about partisan attacks and, reportedly, are randomly shooting at Ukrainian civilians on the offchance they are partisans.

Also on the Russian reaction to partisans... Russians are, reportedly, going door to door in Kherson and searching for anyone that may be a partisan. They are also randomly arresting and torturing civilians in the hopes that they will give them some names that they can then arrest and torture, etc, etc. I saw an article the other day from someone who interviewed people that escaped Kherson and got to Ukrainian controlled territory. According to the story, Kherson will make Bucha look like child's play and there is a number of satellite images showing ever increasing numbers of mass graves in the Kherson region. It is obviously impossible to know who is in the graves, but the pro-Ukrainian side is claiming they are for civilians, while the pro-Russian side is saying "What mass graves??"

 

Dailykos is saying it is Ukraine is carrying out a counteroffensive

side question: how reliable should I take kos to be? Normally I don't go to the site but have found it to have some useful info regarding Ukraine

 

The problem is they have perverted the traditional understanding of that directive:

Instead of Micah 6:8 (act fairly/justly, love mercy, be humble), they think "loving God" is forcing other people to live as the Old Testament dictates (hence the open hostility to the LGBT+ community).

Instead of treating neighbors with dignity and respect, helping to ensure their physical needs are met as the example of the Good Samaritan did, etc., they think loving your neighbor first and foremost means doing everything they can to keep them from going to hell (hence trying to force a raped 10 year old girl to carry a pregnancy to term).

 

I too am keen to hear more about partisan attacks and less about rehashing the Bible.

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...spite-common-front-against-moscow-2022-07-11/

WARSAW, July 11 (Reuters) - Poland's president on Monday called for Ukraine to admit what he called the shameful truth about how Ukrainian nationalists had massacred over 100,000 Poles during World War Two, despite Kyiv and Warsaw's common front against Russia now.

The remarks by Andrzej Duda were made on the 79th anniversary of the 1943 killings in Volhynia in Nazi-occupied Poland and were a pointed reminder of the complex historical ties between Warsaw and Kyiv at a time when Russia's invasion of Ukraine has brought the two neighbours closer together.


I think partisan attacks were involved in the massacres by the Ukrainians and in the reprisals by the Poles

 

Ukraine is currently carrying out a counteroffensive and they seem to be making slow, but consistent progress. One thing that happened within the last few days is that Ukraine broke through Russia's defensive lines in the villages outside of Kherson. Think about what happened in the Donbas region when the Russians broke through at Popasna. From what I understand, we shouldn't expect Ukraine to capture Kherson any time soon, but we could see a rapid expansion of the area they have liberated north of Kherson, which may give them the ability to make Kherson untenable for the Russians.

As far as reliable, Kos and Mark Summers are pretty reliable. They seem to be doing a pretty good job of keeping their politics out of it. It is also good to point out that when Kos was in the military, he was a Fire Control Specialist for a HIMARS unit, so he knows a lot about artillery and, specificaly, HIMARS. The unit's have improved quite a bit since he used them 30 years ago, but the general concept is the same.

 

Wrong thread?

 

Well.. Looks like Ukraine will have some NATO tanks to train with.. Spain has committed to giving Ukraine 10 Leopards. That's obviously not enough to have an impact on the offensive front, but we also know that it takes a month to train tank crews up to a basic level and months to train up the maintenance crews. Providing a small number initially could allow for a situation where you train the trainers up on the Leopard and then, overtime, they start to train up other Ukrainians on how to use the Leopard.

#Spain to transfer 20 APCs and 10 Leopard combat tanks to Ukraine

This was reported by Spanish newspaper Infodefensa, citing sources in Defence Ministry.

Spain has previously transferred ammunition, personal protective equipment and light weapons to AFU.https://t.co/tcFUeotxRx

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) July 12, 2022

 

Another ammo dump went boom. This time in Luhansk:

Luhansk. What appears to be a projectile shooting into the sky due to cook-off can be seen. pic.twitter.com/d0g47FSHgA

— Status-6 (Military & Conflict News) (@Archer83Able) July 12, 2022

HIMARS is definitely messing with Russia's supply lines and, from what I understand, once Ukraine has blown up as many ammo dumps as they can, HIMARS will start deleting as many troop concentrations as they can reach.. Whenever that happens, it is going to be a very, very bad day to be a Russian soldier. With a 3 meter wide hit area, that should give Ukraine the ability to regularly drop high explosives, or fragmentation warheads into Russian trenches with regularity.